Green Eggs and Sand - Part VI

           Gary shares how he and the others are continuing to work at making GE&S better.  They’re currently working on total revision of the program and an updating of the curriculum.  One of the concerns they are addressing is the program’s exclusive emphasis on the Delaware Bay.  Now, they are attempting to make the workshop more regional as well as a curriculum that can be used up and down the Atlantic seaboard.  They’ve added lots of new lessons, made improvements in current lessons, and revamped the design.  Obviously, the hope is to provide more workshop offerings for more teachers along the east coast.  Eventually, materials will be in place that will give students more opportunities to see the various interactions in their own region and how those interactions impact not only the specific region, but their specific lives. 
            It’s early afternoon in the late fall and the sun is slowly lowering itself behind the salt marsh that rings the AREC.  The temperature is beginning to dip, but the intensity of Gary’s remarks never wavers.  He is as passionate about this program as you would be if your son hit a home run in the Little League City Championship.  Indeed, Gary is a proud father of GE&S.
            I tell him I’m interested in anecdotes about “graduates” of the Green Eggs & Sand program.  What have they done, what have their students done, and how has the program transformed their lives?  Barely coming up for air he tells me, “There was a high school student from Delaware who did a science fair project about the biomedical use of horseshoe crabs.  In fact, she did some experiments that we adapted for use in the curriculum that allowed teachers to use the LAL material that comes from horseshoe crabs that pharmaceutical companies use for screening their medicines.  She did a science fair project which we later adapted to the curriculum and bio-medical companies donated thousands of LAL vials to the workshop.  This girl eventually went on to University of Delaware and ended up being a marine biology graduate student as a result of that interest.”
            Gary then proceeds to provide one of those anecdotes that makes the entire experience so rewarding for those involved.  He tells me that the same girl eventually petitioned to have the horseshoe crab named as the state marine animal of Delaware.  While one of the GS&S workshops was taking place the governor of Delaware announced that the horseshoe crab had received that official distinction.  The young girl had been invited to the press conference and afterwards had an opportunity to attend the GS&S workshop, meet some of her heroes (Carl Shuster) and accept the congratulations of all the educators attending the workshop.  It was truly an event to remember.